A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is assembled at the C-17 plant in Long Beach on Aug. 13, 2013. (Photo by Stephen Carr/Long Beach Press-Telegram)

For those wringing their hands over the decline of Southern California’s aerospace industry, Kurt Robinson has a message, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

“Rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated,” said Robinson, chairman and president of Robinson Helicopter Co., the world’s top maker of commercial helicopters.

On Wednesday, the industry suffered another blow when Boeing announced plans to close the C-17 military cargo plane production facility in Long Beach by 2015 because of a lack of new orders.

The plant, California’s last major conventional airplane production line, directly supports about 3,000 jobs nationwide, including 2,200 in Long Beach and Huntington Beach.

Robinson Helicopter, which builds about 500 helicopters a year at its Torrance headquarters, has seen business remain relatively constant in recent years, with his workforce also stable at about 1,300, the executive said.

“The Los Angles area is a wonderful place to do manufacturing for numerous reasons,” Robinson said. “It has a diverse labor force. It has access to all types of subcontractors or processes. If I need some special operation done, odds are I can find it in L.A. And for companies like us, good weather is something you’re looking for because we’re flying the helicopters.”

Southern California’s wealth of aerospace workforce talent, as well as prestigious universities and other schools, are other good reasons to do work here, Robinson said.

News of Boeing’s expected closure fits well into the familiar narrative that Southern California’s aerospace industry is in steep decline. But that narrative is often oversimplified and to a certain extent outdated.

No one is arguing that the state of the region’s aerospace industry is not a legitimate matter of concern. Yet, the picture is far less gloomy than many believe.

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The local job losses from the C-17, out of 4 million total jobs in the region, “is not a death blow to the economy,” said economist Christopher Thornberg of Los Angeles-based Beacon Economics.

“There’s a lot of alternative uses for the land and there are still a lot of very important aerospace businesses here,” Thornberg added.

Historical jobs numbers point to an improving picture.

For Los Angeles County, aerospace jobs started a steep decline after the end of the Cold War. In 1990, the county had 130,100 aerospace workers. A decade later, that number dropped by more than half to 52,400. By 2010, the county’s aerospace jobs numbered 39,100.

However, two years later, the figure fell by only 700 jobs. And so far this year, aerospace jobs are down a mere 200, a huge improvement in the trend that signals relative stability, at least for now.

Furthermore, large parts of aircraft are built in Southern California, even if final assembly is done elsewhere. This includes the center-aft fuselage of the F/A-18 Super Hornet built in El Segundo and the center fuselage of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter made in Palmdale, both by Northrop Grumman.

Another boost for the region are various large space programs, including satellites built in El Segundo by Boeing and Redondo Beach by Northrop, as well as rockets and spacecraft that Space Exploration Technologies, dubbed SpaceX, builds in Hawthorne.

Pilotless aircraft, or drones, designed or built in the region also account for thousands of high-paying jobs.

Even the planned closure of the C-17 plant is part of a larger success story for Boeing and Southern California.

That story represents more than two decades of production, with 257 deliveries and 22 more aircraft scheduled to be completed before the plant closes in two years.

The C-17 line is set to close not because the plane was poorly made or overpriced, but because the U.S. Air Force completed its purchase of 223 planes and Boeing’s success with foreign orders was not enough to maintain the line — a fact that surprised no one familiar with the airlifter market.

“Here’s an aircraft that at the end of the day was an unbelievable value for money,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group in Virginia. “They (Boeing) were beating the hell out of costs, selling 50 or so to foreign buyers, which is unprecedented. No strategic airlifters from the West had ever been exported. They worked wonders with it. They got the costs down. They built a very competitive aircraft in Long Beach.”

Aboulafia emphasized that the impending shutdown of the Long Beach production line is not a result of higher labor costs or environmental regulations, factors blamed by many analysts and politicians for California’s loss of aerospace jobs.

By contrast, Aboulafia pointed to “happenstance” as a major reason for the industry’s decline in the region.

In 1997, when Boeing merged with the combined company, McDonnell Douglas, it was already greatly diminished on the crucial commercial aircraft side.

“Could other issues such as labor cost and environmental regulations have played a role? Sure,” Aboulafia said. “But that’s nothing compared to corporate posture, investment decisions and contract wins.”

If one factor deserves the most blame for Southern California’s weakened aerospace sector, it is the so-called peace dividend after the Cold War ended. Thousands of the region’s aerospace jobs dependent on the Department of Defense were decimated as federal dollars moved to nonmilitary priorities.

Even today, federal belt tightening and a congressional budget deal known as sequestration that dramatically cut into federal defense spending continue to hurt the local aerospace sector.

“It’s clear that the California aerospace industry was built on the back of the defense industry and we’re seeing the ride down with the defense cutbacks, the military base closures and now sequestration,” said state Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance Democrat and chairman of the Select Committee on Aerospace.

Muratsuchi’s committee is forming an advisory board from the state’s aerospace companies and other interested parties to help guide the government’s promotion of the industry. He also sponsored two Assembly bills to reduce taxes on aerospace companies.

Muratsuchi said the state must put more focus on satisfying rising foreign demand for commercial aircraft, private space flight businesses like SpaceX and makers of drones.

“In the face of recent and future defense cutbacks, we need to focus on expanding the civilian uses of aerospace technology,” Muratsuchi said.

Others are working to support the region’s aerospace industry. Last year, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. created the LA Jobs Defense Council, combining the efforts of labor leaders, companies and politicians to help local aerospace companies better navigate regulations and government incentives.

Lowering the cost of doing business in California would also help attract aerospace jobs as well as other manufacturing positions, according to Gino DiCaro, a spokesman for the California Manufacturers & Technology Association.

“We have workers comp premiums that are the third highest in the country. We have electricity rates that are 50 percent higher than the rest of the country. We have a tax burden that’s among the highest in the country,” DiCaro said. “Manufacturers understand California is never going to be an inexpensive place to operate, but they want to get close.”

As for the C-17 plant, there’s a chance it may not truly be the end of the line, said Aboulafia, the analyst.

“I’m not convinced it’s done,” he said. “What if someone else I don’t know about orders a batch, like Saudi Arabia. Six months to a year from now, somebody wants to order 15. Are they going to say no?”